


The Soldier

by TheMadHatterOfficial



Series: sad gay hours [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Drug Use, Icky Stuff, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Lullabies, M/M, My babies deserved better, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Rape/Non-con Elements, bruh, dave is a gotdammed angel, no beta we die like ben, nonbinary klaus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:15:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23750659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMadHatterOfficial/pseuds/TheMadHatterOfficial
Summary: The soldier had been there for as long as Four could remember being alive.There were a lot of ghosts. Four thought they were probably drawn to him, coming from all different times and all different places around the world. They wailed and screamed and dripped blood everywhere. Four could never escape the constant noise buzzing in his ears. He’d never known silence.But the soldier helped.
Relationships: Dave/Klaus Hargreeves
Series: sad gay hours [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2083887
Comments: 60
Kudos: 538





	The Soldier

**Author's Note:**

> Um. Have fun.
> 
> *TW* at the end if anything in the tags is squishy it'll be there

The soldier had been there for as long as Four could remember being alive.

There were a lot of ghosts. Four thought they were probably drawn to him, coming from all different times and all different places around the world. They wailed and screamed and dripped blood everywhere. Four could never escape the constant noise buzzing in his ears. He’d never known silence.

But the soldier helped.

He barely ever actually spoke _to_ Four. He spoke to other ghosts, (yelled, _screamed_ at them to shut up shut up shut up _shut up_ ) but he’d never so much as raised his voice at him.

The only times Four could think of were when he got scared and panicked, his chest caving in and his lungs suffocating beneath his ribcage. When Four could do nothing but pull at his hair, desperately heaving in choked breaths that never seemed to take, rocking and humming and banging his head over and over and over and over and over and over and

_(“Shh, it’s alright kiddo. You’re okay, everything’s okay, sunshine. That’s it, that’s it. Can you focus on me? Klaus, focus on my voice. You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay.”)_

Four was never okay.

But the sentiment was appreciated.

* * *

The soldier was so nice to Four. He couldn’t think of a single reason why.

No one was ever nice, except for mom. But that didn’t really count. She was programmed to be nice to everyone. Pretty and perfect and submissive and nice.

Dad was dad, of course. But even out of his siblings Four was the odd one out.

Two was probably the closest to Four, even if they hardly ever spent time together. He was always with mom and got annoyed when Four spoke too loud, or giggled a weird way.

_“He just makes me uncomfortable,” Three had murmured to One late one summer night. “Whenever I’m around him, it feels like something’s wrong.”_

_“His hands are always cold,” One whispered back. “He smells like something’s rotting.”_

Four took particular offense to that. He’d _just_ showered.

That night, between hiccuping sobs, Four thought hard on his big sister’s words. They’d just had a slumber party together and Three painted his toenails pink and orange. Was she faking? Did she hate it the whole time and felt too guilty to say something? Or was she making fun of him?

“Klaus. Klaus. **_Klaus_ **.”

Four blinked up through his tears to see the soldier sitting on the edge of his bed.

The fairy lights above Four’s bed cast him in a gentle honey light.

The soldier’s dark dark dark blood glinted ominously over his muddy fatigues.

His blue blue blue eyes glowed something fierce.

“Don’t listen to them. Don’t you _dare_ listen to them.”

A young Austrian girl sniffled gently in the corner and viciously dug her one of her fingers through the bullet hole in her head.

“Understand me? You are _incredible_ , Klaus. Never let anyone dull your light, sunshine. That includes yourself.”

Four picked away the polish on his toes and nodded along. The knot in his chest began to loosen as he looked up into the soldier’s eyes, a few stray curls falling over his forehead and sticking to his eyelashes.

“I understand.”

The soldier smiled, tight and pained but still so genuine. Four itched to poke at the dimple sinking into the soldier’s cheek, but he knew it would go straight through.

“I want it off.”

Four scraped harder at the orange polish, desperately trying to scrape away any reminders of Three for the time being.

“You’re more of a winter anyway, sweetheart.”

Four looked up and laughed, the soldier’s own smile gentling in return.

The Austrian girl cracked her head against the wall and the soldier rolled his eyes.

Somehow, he made the others seem a little less scary to Four.

Number Four was six years old and he didn’t understand.

* * *

Two months later, on Birthday, Mom named them.

Evidently, Klaus had a feeling that he knew exactly what his would be.

* * *

As he got older, the soldier talked to Klaus more.

He was funny. Once, after dad had caned Klaus raw for tripping Five up the stairs, the soldier had spent the entire day miming licking dad’s cheek, slow dancing with Pogo, and even putting on a one man show about a love triangle between a girl and two boys from the rich part of town, where the soldier reprised all roles.

The two boys forgot the girl and fell in love with each other.

Klaus had never laughed so hard as he did when the soldier fell over the second floor banister in an attempt to kiss himself.

“You’re crazy,” Ben whispered and Klaus shrugged.

Soon, there was hardly a day when the soldier wasn’t there. It seemed like he was as permanent a fixture as his family. And with the soldier, Klaus felt so much less alone. Diego had mom. Luther and Allison had each other. Five, Ben, and Vanya all had one another.

And Klaus had his soldier boy.

When the world felt far too small or far too big, when Klaus was torn between being crushed beneath the weight or floating away past the earth, past the gravity, past the atmosphere and into the imploding novas in outer space, the soldier was there to talk him through. Or sometimes sing. He was a good singer (at least Klaus thought so) and he’d fall asleep in the glow of dimming lamplight to the soldier humming a tune from long ago.

When the ghosts got too much, the soldier was there fighting them back. He didn’t always succeed, but he damn well tried, which was more than anyone else could say.

“Godfucking _dammit_ ! Back the _fuck off_ or I’ll hurt you so fucking bad you’ll wish you could die **_again_ **!”

(Klaus learned almost all of his curse words from him.)

Klaus remembered one particular ghost from his childhood that was really bad. He’d stand so close Klaus would sometimes phase through and watch him every second of every day. Klaus didn’t properly shower for months because he’d always be there, murmuring things that made Klaus’s skin crawl and make him feel dirty dirty dirty. For hours he would talk about how much he wanted to touch Klaus, talk about what he’d done to other little boys, how much Klaus would enjoy it.

Klaus hadn’t known how much ghosts could do to each other before.

When the soldier finally saw what was happening, he found out.

That man had never come back.

“Can you…”

The soldier looked up in surprise. Klaus had been young, and this was the first time he’d ever initiated a conversation with the soldier.

His voice was rough and it cracked, wavering as Klaus had picked at his lip and hovered in the bathroom doorway.

“You can ask.” The soldier smiled and knelt down so he could be eye level with Klaus. “I’ll be nice.”

“Can you stand in front of the curtain? So the others won’t bother me?”

The soldier’s shoulders tightened and his face became serious. “Of course. I’ll always protect you, Klaus.”

Klaus had nodded and turned, locking the door. The soldier smiled again and turned around, sitting with his back facing Klaus and watching the door.

He still waited until he was behind the curtain to undress, but there was no doubt in Klaus’s mind that he was safer with the soldier around.

Klaus is seven years old and he knows what it is like to be protected.

* * *

The mausoleum was Hell on Earth.

Not even the soldier could make them all stop. He tried (he tried _so hard_ , and Klaus couldn’t hate him if he wanted to) but there was no reprieve in there.

Klaus couldn’t see in the mausoleum.

He couldn’t pick apart one voice from another with all the screaming.

Couldn’t even hear himself screaming, even though he knew he was from the rawness of his throat and breathlessness in his lungs.

But when it was over, hours and hours later, when Klaus laid on his bedroom floor dissociating from the world around him, the soldier helped.

_“Hey Jude_

_Don’t make it bad.”_

It was the same song every time. By now Klaus knew it by heart, knew every word and where the soldier’s voice would always break on the high parts.

The soldier laid on his back beside him, tracing the string of lights on the ceiling with his finger.

Slowly but surely, the soldier had become Klaus’s anchor. His savior and protector and everything all rolled into one.

_“And anytime you feel the pain_

_Hey Jude, refrain_

_Don’t carry the world upon your shoulders.”_

The dried tears on Klaus’s cheeks were itchy but his body was too heavy to wipe them off. He sunk into the floor, his lead bones threatening to break through the floor beneath him.

Maybe the ground would swallow him up. Maybe Klaus could fall through to the core of the Earth, burning burning burning until he could finally fade away.

_“So let it out and let it in_

_Hey Jude, begin_

_You’re waiting for someone to perform with.”_

Slowly, Klaus let himself join in. His voice cracked every other word, quiet and slow, but the soldier matched his tempo to Klaus’s.

_“And don’t you know that it’s just you_

_Hey Jude, you’ll do_

_The movement you need is on your shoulder.”_

Klaus didn’t move from the floor until late the next day, way past lunch and ignoring his siblings yelling and shouting at him to stop being so dramatic. His mind was far, far away. Somewhere high up in the clouds away from the ghosts, from his dad, suspended in the ether and surrounded by the blue blackness of the universe.

Klaus is eight years old and he felt all the pieces of himself finally begin to shatter.

* * *

An actual mission was a lot different than the training that the Umbrella Academy had gone through.

Klaus was home now, in his bed with every lamp and light shining bright.

“Are you okay?”

One of the bank robbers Diego killed screamed in the hallway.

The soldier was standing by Klaus’s window, eyebrows pulled together and hands clenching over and over as if he wanted to grab something.

In hindsight, Klaus probably had the smallest role today. (Not counting Vanya, for obvious reasons.) He’d talked to one of the ghosts in the back alley, figured out how many hostages and how many robbers, and relayed the info so that his other siblings could do all the dirty work.

One of the hostages was shot before they got there. She was weeping over her body, rocking and pulling her hair and muttered incoherent prayers over and over and over.

“Fine.”

Klaus had seen someone die today. He watched the red red red blood pool around them, seen their spirits crawl from their corpse and slowly come to the realization that they were dead.

“I don’t believe you.”

The tears come slowly, sluggishly crawling down Klaus’s cheeks and soaking into the collar of his shirt. One of his lamps flickered behind him and Klaus didn't even flinch.

His body is cold. Colder than it usually is, his limbs feeling like the equivalent to television static buzzing beneath his skin. The world around him is hazy, blurry around the trim and fading in and out of focus.

Around him, the ghosts continue their harmonic wail.

The soldier sits beside him in silence.

Klaus is ten years old and he is numb.

* * *

“How did you die?”

Klaus was on the rooftop smoking his first cigarette. It burned his lungs and made him think he was going to die, but Klaus was determined to get the hang of it even though it made his stomach roll and his head pound.

The soldier looked over from where he was laying on his back and staring up at the stars.

“Can’t you guess?”

Klaus rolled his eyes and lounged back on his forearms. He’s snuck out several times before, the soldier always following and admonishing him. Trying to keep him safe.

One of the boys at the skate park offered him half a pack of cigarettes since they were the wrong ones. The soldier told him not to, but Klaus had terrible impulse control and a disgusting amount of curiosity.

“I mean, yeah. But I want to know.”

It was quiet for a bit, punctuated by the moaning of the dead a floor below.

“The war,” the soldier eventually said, voice strained. Klaus’s eyebrows pulled together and he leaned closer. “Vietnam, 1968. Got hit.”

“Oh.” Klaus had never actually asked a ghost how they died. Sure, a ton of them screamed about it, told him in more detail than he’d ever wanted to know. Horrific, bloody, gruesome deaths. But this was different. Klaus was fond of the soldier, had been for a long time. And seeing his face, lost and distraught and ever so slightly broken, made Klaus feel like shit for bringing it up. “I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for, sunshine.”

The soldier threw Klaus a sad little smile and made an aborted movement like he wanted to reach out to touch him but pulled back before he could.

For once, Klaus didn’t flinch.

He took another drag of his cigarette and coughed harshly.

He began rocking a bit in the same slightly off center way he tended to fall into.

“You really shouldn’t be smoking, kid.”

“I bet you smoked all the time.”

“That’s different. I was an adult. And we didn’t know that they caused cancer.”

Klaus rolled his eyes. “Cancer shmancer. Bite me.”

The soldier sighed and Klaus giggled brightly. He rocked on his arms before pushing himself up and wrapping his arms around his knees. Klaus caught the soldier smiling gently at him and he found his next question bubbling out without his permission.

“Do you like me?”

Klaus held his breath as the soldier gave another one of his sad smiles.

“Of course, Klaus. I like being around you.”

“But would you still like me if I wasn’t the only person you could talk to?”

The soldier rolled his eyes (he liked doing that a lot) and turned to face Klaus fully. “One thousand percent. You’re one of the good ones, sunshine. You light up the room wherever you go and bring so much happiness and joy no matter where you are. I even remember you as a baby. I think you were the first of your siblings to smile, too. I just remember thinking, _where did he learn that? How is he able to smile here of all places?_ But you do it. You smile and laugh make the world just a little bit better simply by existing.”

Klaus, at a loss of what to say and struggling with words almost as bad as Diego, pulled up another of his infamous grins and giggled awkwardly. He reached up and tugged at a loose ringlet with nicotine stained fingers. “If I didn’t know better, soldier boy, I’d say you were in love with me.”

At that, a look crossed the soldier’s face that Klaus couldn’t even begin to pick apart. It made his stomach churn, though. Made Klaus’s heartbeat stutter and eyes widen as the soldier’s flicked away with a sad lilt that glinted in the starlight.

Klaus is eleven years old and he thinks he might know what heartbreak is.

* * *

Diego thought it was funny, at least.

It was Saturday afternoon, during their allotted thirty minutes of free time. Klaus’s friends from the skate park had all been arrested for vandalism so he didn’t have anywhere to be at the moment. Apparently, neither did the rest of his siblings, and for the first time in forever they were all spending time together.

The soldier had left him to it, apparently going to visit his nieces down south.

(‘Visit’ being used loosely, but oh well.)

Mom had gotten a new pair of shoes recently, and they were so pretty. They were dark red with little bows above the toes and just happened to be exactly Klaus’s size.

“You look ridiculous,” Luther had scolded firmly. Just like dad.

Allison smacked his shoulder gently and smiled at Klaus. Klaus beamed back and began to twirl in his uniform skirt. “You look lovely, Klaus.”

“Oh, and thank you for your contribution, dear Vanya!”

Vanya, leaning against the banister with Ben and Five, gave a thumbs up without interrupting Five and Six’s debate about the ethics of the Stanford Experiment.

Diego snorted as Klaus stumbled slightly and erupted into a fit of manic giggles. “This is so fun! Di, try it!”

“Th-that’s gonna be a ha-ha-hard pa-ass.”

“You’re gonna fall,” Five shouted, jumping to sit on the railing.

Ben snorted and Vanya grinned. “ _Crack_.”

It happened so quickly. One moment Allison was twirling him around with her finger and the next he jumped away to pirouette.

His ankle rolled and everything began to spin.

Several moments later, bouncing and bouncing and bouncing, Klaus landed on the ground floor with a sickening pop just under his ears.

Klaus’s breath tumbled out in a rush.

Then, he _screamed_.

There was a whoosh and a flash of blue and Five was there holding him still. The girls were screaming at the top of the stairs and Luther jumped the banister towards dad’s office.

Later, as Klaus lay in the hospital cot with mom hovering over him, he cast his eyes around for the soldier. Surely he would be back by now. Maybe he would sing to him. Klaus wanted the soldier to sing to him.

He wasn’t there.

In fact, no one was there.

Klaus’s blood stopped in his veins. The world seemed to be frozen, crucified in amber and muffled through the stone. Klaus almost expected to hear the gentle twinkling of crystallized stardust.

But he couldn’t. All that was there was the pounding of his heart racing and echoing in his ears.

(The _sound_.)

(Klaus had _never_ been able to hear his heartbeat. The ghosts were too loud. He never noticed how the cot creaked or how the thumps of his siblings’ feet could be heard from a whole floor away and _wow_ , the clock actually _ticked_? That wasn’t just a saying?)

Since the beginning there had always been a boy in the medical wing. He looked around fourteen years old and had hung from the ceiling for as long as Klaus could remember. There had always been the ever-present creaking of the rope and spinning of the boy’s pale body just beside the medicine cabinet.

He wasn’t there.

No one was there.

“I’ll leave you to get some rest, dear.”

Grace stepped forward and leaned down to brush a gentle kiss to Klaus’s forehead. She was Cold, her lips stiff and artificial. But Klaus didn’t mind. He never minded.

“Next time you try on my shoes, perhaps we should practice away from the stairs. How does that sound, my darling?”

Klaus nodded and gave Grace a strained smile. Bless her heart, Grace didn’t process that smile as any different from Klaus’s usual ones, and glided away from the infirmary with a little bounce in her step.

The boy was still gone. There was no sound in the room, no screaming or shouting or pervy old men begging Klaus to take a pair of V’s underwear for them.

 _What was different now? Why were they gone_ **_now_ ** _?_

The drip in Klaus’s arm splashed above him. His eyebrow twitched up as a half-formed idea took root.

 _Maybe…_

But that could’ve just been a coincidence. There was no telling if it was the meds that were blocking his powers. No way to know.

Until later that night when they came back. And when mom gave him more morphine they began to fade yet again.

 _Whoa,_ Klaus had thought with a stilted hum. _I want more of that._

Klaus is twelve years old, and he finally knows what silence is.

* * *

“Oh god.”

Klaus tore his eyes away from the scene Five was making in front of them. Everyone’s eyes were flickering between dad and Five, holding their breath in anticipation whether dad would cane him now or later.

(He’d never hesitated to bend any one of them over the dining room table and cane them bloody before. He wouldn’t now.)

“While knowledge is an admirable goal Number Five, you know the rules. No talking at the table.”

“But I’m _ready_.”

“Don’t let him leave.”

The soldier was closer now, kneeling next to where Klaus was swaying at the dining table. Klaus nearly jumped out of his skin, dropping his rolling paper and staring at the soldier with wide, startled eyes.

“What?” Klaus whispered.

Ben threw him a confused look and Klaus waved him off.

“I’m gonna sound fucking insane, sunshine. But your brother’s about to run out that door. And he’s not going to come back.”

“Number Five! Get back here this instant!”

“ **_KLAUS!_ **”

Before he could even process it, Klaus was leaping back from the table and sprinting after Five faster than he’d ever run in his life.

“ _Number Four!_ ”

Five was already half a block away. His academy blazer whipped behind him as he slowed to a walk, weaving in and out of the crowd like a half crazed mental hospital escapee.

Klaus didn’t slow down, shoving people aside as his feet slapped against the pavement.

The world was slightly fuzzy at the edges, the high from last night almost gone completely.

Half of a woman’s torn apart body snatched at Klaus’s ankles. He jumped and nearly toppled over a young mom and her stroller.

There was a gentle spark. Five’s fingers curled as if they were cradling the fragile blue light in his hands growing stronger and stronger and stron

Klaus could proudly admit that he had never heard Five scream as loudly as he did when he tackled him to the pavement, the light in his palms extinguishing like a match and fading back into nothingness.

Klaus’s knees skinned the pavement and he felt hot, sticky blood begin to soak into his knee high socks. Five groaned and began to inspect his scraped and bleeding palms. The sleeve of his blazer was ripped and one of Five’s buttons was still rolling a few feet in front of them.

“ _What the hell, Klaus?!_ ”

“Don’t do it! I know I sound crazy but you can’t do it! Please, Five, don’t leave us!”

Five’s eyes had slowly begun to widen as Klaus crawled forward, nearly straddling his brother on the ground.

A crowd started to form. A young woman in a pencil skirt and stilettos crouched down beside them. “Are you two alright, dear?”

“Fine!”

“Fuck off, lady.”

Klaus smacked Five’s shoulder and turned to apologize to the woman. She stumbled back in surprise, staring at the two bleeding school boys in front of her before stepping back.

Five shoved Klaus off of him before climbing to his feet. Klaus winced as he stood, the skin of his knees protesting hotly.

“What are you even talking about?”

“Just…” of course, the soldier had to bail right at this moment, “you can’t leave.”

Five’s eyebrows pulled together, his head tilting to the side in a way that was reminiscent of a young puppy. “I’d come back,” he said slowly, as if Klaus were stupid. As if the answer was obvious. “I’d never leave you guys.”

Oh, was Klaus crying again? Dad despised any sort of weakness like crying, but Klaus could never help it. His emotions had always been wild, uncontrollable. He teared up at the drop of a hat.

But right now? Five just looked uncomfortable.

“You’re crazy.”

Klaus shrugged, pulling up his shirt to wipe away the tears tracking down his cheeks. “Promise me? Whatever you were going to do, promise me you won’t?”

“Why?”

“Because it’s bad.” Klaus sniffled and glanced away.

The soldier stood a few feet away. He was nodding and giving Klaus an encouraging little smile that made him feel just a little bit braver. “Trust me, Five. It’s _bad_.”

Five looks like he doesn’t believe Klaus. Like he wants to roll his eyes and yell at Klaus to get back to the academy, to leave him alone and let him do what he needs to.

But he doesn’t. Five’s eyes track Klaus, flicking up and down and back up again.

Klaus sniffs and holds himself tight around his midsection. Like he’s trying to stop from falling apart. From shattering yet again and floating away away away, turning to dust and floating away with the wind.

“I promise.”

Five doesn’t even protest when Klaus flings himself at him. Just awkwardly wraps his arms around his brother, tentative at first before growing more confident and holding him tight to his chest.

Four and Five don’t go back to the academy until three o’clock the next morning. They wander the city, Klaus clutching Five’s hand tightly and Five allowing him with minimal complaints. Klaus shows him his favorite places and Five brings him to the library and shows him the tiny nook in the corner by the windowsill no one sits at.

When they go home, Reginald Hargreeves is beyond livid. Five and Klaus sit through their punishment silently, taking and taking and taking it, but neither can bring themselves to regret that day.

Klaus is thirteen years old and at some point in time a certain government agency is shitting bricks.

* * *

The soldier was quite handsome.

Klaus had never noticed as a kid. Back then he was just happy to have someone there to talk to, to laugh at his jokes and sing him to sleep.

He’d never registered the shape of his jaw as he laughed. Had never noticed the way his eyes sparkled when he laughed or the movement of muscles under his thin army vest.

If only he’d found a crush a little more attainable than a dead twenty-something who treated him like a sad little puppy that spent his days nipping at his heels for the slightest bit of affection.

(Not that the soldier had ever refused him. Quite the opposite. Sometimes Klaus even felt a little smothered by it, but the ghosts always smothered him, so he’d rather it be the soldier than anyone else.)

So Klaus’s first kiss was a girl from the local public high school who’d given him his latest bump of coke.

“Classy.”

Klaus rolled his eyes and flipped off the soldier behind his back.

The girl wasn’t very good at kissing. It was wet and sloppy and made Klaus question if he was actually pansexual or if he could get by on just being gay.

The coke wasn’t even that good.

As Klaus danced, the ghosts flickered. In general, Klaus never knew if the drugs really blocked his powers or just made it easier for him to ignore the ghosts. But between that and the strobe lights flickering red and purple and yellow and green and blue, Klaus couldn’t tell if the girl next to him was wearing paint or dripping blood.

At some point there’s a boy. He’s a little older than Klaus with bright blonde hair and deep brown eyes that Klaus begins to lose himself in. Klaus fists his hands into the boy’s shirt and the boy’s hands go to Klaus’s hair.

Klaus’s mouth falls open and before he can protest the boy he’s dancing with has put something on his tongue.

Everything swirls.

Suddenly, Klaus’s view gets hazy. The lights blur together into a blinding conglomeration of glitter and glow sticks and sweaty bodies gracelessly falling together on a blood-soaked dance floor.

Nothing makes _sense_. The world is upside down and everything is wrong and he’s being pulled pulled pulled upstairs with a hand on his back and another so tight around his wrist that Klaus truly believes it might break.

The soldier. The soldier.

At the stairs Klaus finally sees him. He’s right beside Klaus, their shoulders melting together as the soldier’s mouth is moving frantically. He’s yelling, but Klaus can’t hear him, can't hear his voice, and _oh, how will the soldier sing to him?_

There’s a room across from the top of the stairs.

The lock snicks.

“Oh, sweetheart.”

Klaus is kicking, even though he’s too drugged to do anything. His arms are too weak to move as they’re pinned to his lower back, his bony wrists grinding harshly against each other.

The soldier’s voice gets gentler as Klaus’s skirt gets shoved aside.

He doesn’t stop talking through it all, which Klaus is grateful for. The soldier knows he can’t get away, knows that they’re powerless to escape. But he doesn’t leave. _He doesn’t leave._

Klaus’s throat is raw. He goes quiet.

The boy leaves. He doesn’t even bother closing the door behind him.

Everything falls into a strange hum. The music downstairs is thumping against the wall and vibrating through Klaus’s chest. He can feel it is his bones, rattling in time to the beat.

A piece of dust falls through the air in front of Klaus’s eyes.

Klaus’s breathing slows to a gentle cadence, matching the soldier’s in the same way he always has.

“Sunshine?”

The soldier is whispering, as if he’s scared someone will overhear him. Which is funny, since the only other people that can hear him are the other ghosts.

There’s a couple of tweakers in the corner poking at old track marks on their arms. Klaus doesn’t know if they’re alive or dead, but he can’t bring himself to care at this point.

The tears had stopped a long time ago. The pillow beneath Klaus is soaked but he doesn’t bother to move.

Everything’s too loud. The music, the screaming, the water dripping from the bathroom sink. It’s making Klaus’s skin crawl with the need to fall away.

“Baby, _please_ . You have to get up, call Diego or Ben or Vanya. You have to _get up,_ Klaus.”

His voice is quiet, wavering and breaking at the end. Klaus’s eyes lazily roll up, landing on the soldier’s face hovering too close and yet not close enough to his face.

Can ghosts cry? Because Klaus is sure that there are tears running down the soldier’s face, dripping down to match the ever-flowing stream of blood that falls from the wound gaping in his chest.

“Get up. Klaus, get up. _Please get up_.”

* * *

Klaus is fifteen years old and he knows what rape is.

* * *

He does it again.

Klaus is lookout for the thousandth time. He’s sitting behind the abandoned lodge house cul de sac thing smoking a cigarette and picking at a scab on his palm as he waits for his siblings to finish.

“Wait…”

The soldier jumps up from where he was sitting beside Klaus. He looks around frantically, eyes flicking side to side as he tries to remember something.

His head snaps around so fast it’s like they’re in a horror movie. Klaus raises an eyebrow and sinks back against the wall.

Luther shouts something in the house a few down from where Klaus is.

“Get Ben out.”

Klaus huffs a laugh and breathes out the smoke. “Why? Benji’s fine. They do this all the fucking time.”

“Klaus. Get him _out_.”

It’s the same tone the soldier had when he told Klaus to go after Five. Deep and gravelly, frantic and a little broken.

The soldier kneels in front of Klaus, eyes full of unshed tears and palms shaking where they hover over Klaus’s shoulders. “He’s going to die.”

Hours later Klaus is waking up in the infirmary with two of his ribs cracked and his left leg snapped in four different places. There are cuts all along his left side from where he’d thrown Ben and himself through a second story window just before he could release the Horror.

Ben is on the cot next to Klaus. He’s curled up and shaking, eyes wide as his stomach rolls violently under his hands.

“Dad’s so mad.”

Klaus scoffed and rolled his eyes. Ben slowly unfolds and stands up, still hunched over and shaking. “I would’ve done it.” Ben’s voice wavers and eyes flicker, biting his lip anxiously. “I could’ve controlled it.”

Somehow their hands find each other and Klaus squeezes his brother’s hand tightly. “I know buddy.”

Neither of them believe one another.

Mom sends him to recover in his own room with a bottle of painkillers Klaus is just going to snort later that night.

“How do you know these things?” Klaus finds himself asking the soldier later that night.

The soldier taps his fingers on Klaus’s bedside table. They don’t make any sound, but then again why would it?

Klaus shifts on his bed and pulls the blankets tighter around him.

The soldier gains this rueful kind of smile and leans in close to Klaus conspiratorially.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

“Maybe another time, sweetheart.”

Soon after Klaus falls into sleep. The soldier hums and bunkers down to lay next to Klaus. They lock eyes, the soldier never looking away as Klaus drifts away with gentle breaths disrupting the little ringlets that have dropped in front of his eyes

Klaus is seventeen years old and he never learns what it’s like to love Number Six.

* * *

Life on the streets wasn’t exactly what Klaus had planned for his life, but that’s how these things go.

(As if he had a plan.)

Winter is bitingly cold. It’s begun to lighten up, spring almost cresting over, but Klaus is still huddled up under an awning as snow frosts his eyebrows.

Usually he’s smart enough to get off the streets for most of it, either in shelters or a motel with what he could scrounge up, or even shack up with a regular like he’d been doing for the past two or so weeks.

But he’d just kicked Klaus out onto the street yet again, barely giving him time to grab his ratty vans and run out down the street in the slick snow.

Shockingly, after some john confesses his undying love to the junkie hooker he’s been housing, the appropriate reaction _wasn’t_ saying ‘sucks to suck’ before asking if he could have the expired pain pills in his bathroom cabinet.

Weird.

“I mean, maybe I was a little harsh.”

“He tried to rape you after you said no. Should’ve said a lot worse than ‘sucks to suck.”

“Gosh soldier boy, I knew I liked you for a reason.”

The soldier gave a bright little grin at that and something in Klaus’s chest lights up at that.

“You deserve better, sunshine. Maybe we should head to a rehab center for the rest of winter. They have food. Warm bed.”

“ _Orrrr……_ ” Klaus reached into the pocket of his bright blue cardigan and pulled out a rattling orange bottle. “I could get shitfaced on our dear Aaron’s happy pills.”

Klaus really didn’t like the look on the soldier’s face. It was sad and resigned, pained in a way Klaus knew he’d never really understand.

For a second, Klaus really considered rehab. The soldier always had this hopeful air about him whenever they were there, always encouraging Klaus to talk in group and to try his best.

But the _high_.

(But the _ghosts_.)

“His name was Tony, by the way.”

“Eh. I was close.”

“You really weren’t.”

Klaus popped a few of the pills without stopping to think, grimacing as he swallowed them dry. He caught the soldier looking away and shaking his head, and for a moment, Klaus felt a tinge of regret well up.

A few minutes after the silence prevailed, Klaus finally looked up to where the soldier usually was.

Just as he suspected, the soldier wasn’t there anymore.

It was happening more often now. When Klaus was younger, the soldier was there no matter what, no matter the high. But now, the soldier began to flicker.

He’d asked once, if the soldier was leaving on purpose. He said he wasn’t, that sometimes Klaus really _couldn’t_ see him when he was high, but it never registered when Klaus was so fucked out of his mind.

He was going away easier and easier nowadays.

“Great.”

It was getting dark by now, bound to get bitingly cold tonight. Klaus could go to a shelter, but they were definitely full by now, and Klaus would _die_ before ever going to the academy to beg dear Reggie for a room.

“I could get arrested. A night in the drunk tank couldn’t hurt.”

If the soldier was still there Klaus knew he was shaking his head and telling Klaus it was a bad idea. But it wasn’t like Klaus could hear.

And without the soldier’s big puppy eyes, it would be so much easier to do so.

All he needed was some booze.

Klaus was just gearing up to walk into the convenience store across the street so he could smuggle out a bottle when suddenly, the past smacked straight into him so hard it made him stagger in the snow.

“ _Klaus_?!”

Ah, the past. What a bitch.

Klaus waited as he watched Diego dash down the sidewalk towards him, hurried and frantic as he weaved his way through the thick New York foot traffic to his brother huddling near the entrance of a conservative looking hair salon.

He looked good, was the first thought that hit Klaus. The scar on the side of Diego’s head has healed up nicely, hair finally growing out again from where he’d had to shave it.

Huh. He didn’t know Diego’s hair curled like that.

“Jesus Christ bro, you have to be _freezing_.”

Without even pausing Diego was shrugging off his thick leather jacket and wrapping it tight around Klaus’s scantily clad body. Klaus hadn’t even realized how cold he was until his brother was zipping up the coat and taking off his gloves to slide onto Klaus’s hands.

“You use the same cologne.”

Diego looked up from where he was viciously rubbing up and down Klaus’s arms with a quirked eyebrow. Klaus just burrowed closer into the coat, wrapping his arms around himself and looking up at Diego through his eyelashes.

“C’mon. Let’s go to my place.”

* * *

Diego was apparently graduating from the police academy in a week. He invited Klaus to the ceremony as nonchalantly as he could, but Klaus kinda (really) wanted to go.

Klaus was proud. He really, really was. For the most part, everyone else is doing amazing in life and Klaus couldn’t be more ecstatic for his family, even if he didn’t keep in touch as much as he wanted.

Bar Luther, everyone was out of the house. Allison had just won a grammy, Five was a professor at fucking MIT (became the youngest in history at age nineteen, look at their little psychopath go), Ben was in medical school, and even Vanya was in an orchestra and doing fantastic. She was apparently going to have a book coming out soon, and Klaus was planning on saving up for it. He might even get an autograph for it, give him an excuse to visit little Number Seven.

Diego talked about all of this with happiness, making hot chocolate and scrambled eggs as Klaus wandered around the tiny apartment. It wasn’t much bigger than the boiler room he’d gotten when they’d left home at seventeen, but it was nice. Diego seemed to like it.

There was a little bookshelf near the window. There was one picture on there of the seven of them when they were around twelve, mom standing behind them with the same bright red smile and gentle hands on Two and Five’s shoulders.

Klaus remembered that day. Dad was off to the side. Diego must’ve cut him out of the photo, and wasn’t _that_ a riot.

Halfway through the visit, as Diego was finishing up, the soldier decided to pop back in.

“I heard you the first time, _god_.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

Klaus looked up at his brother, now paused in scrambling the eggs and scowling at Klaus. “Not you, brother dear.”

Diego paused for a moment before putting the fork down. “You can’t see ghosts when you’re high,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Yeah, well, this one likes to linger. Pretty fucking annoying, actually.”

The soldier gives Klaus the sunniest smile he can from where he’s perched on the counter beside Diego.

Klaus throws one back before holding up the finger.

“Wait, is it next to me?!”

“ _It_ ,” the soldier scoffs and shakes his head. “I’m an _‘it’_ now. Fuck you too, man.”

Klaus snorts into his cup of water and giggles a little too loudly.

“Is it?!”

“He says hi.”

“I did _not_ say hi.”

Diego slowly steps away from the counter while glancing back. As if he could see where he was at.

And, just to be an asshole, the soldier jumps off the counter and stands uncomfortably close to Diego’s back.

Klaus throws back his head and laughs even harder.

“What does he look like?”

“Who, the soldier?”

“Um, if that’s the ghost. Yeah.”

“Yeah sunshine. What do I look like?”

Klaus rolled his eyes and pulled his legs up under him. “Uh, about as tall as you. Blond, blue eyes. Big ass gunshot wound in his gut.”

“Thanks.”

Klaus blew a kiss his way and the soldier pretended to catch it and smush it to his cheek.

Later, Diego directed Klaus down the hall to the cramped little guest room and threw some spare clothes at him. “Feel free to use the shower, and you can sleep in these.”

Oh gods, a _bed_ . A real, live, _actual_ bed that didn’t have rat shit or mold around the edges or weird dark spots and sticky outy springs.

Klaus took a running start, bouncing a bit before burrowing down and heaving a sigh of contentment. “This is perfect. Thanks Di.”

Diego was visibly uncomfortable, shifting from foot to foot and tucking his arms around himself. “Yeah, whatever. Just don’t… like, draw all over the walls like you used to.”

“Ugh, if you insist.”

“I always liked your drawings,” the soldier chimed in from where he stood at the window. He smiled brightly at Klaus. “A bit on the macabre side of things, but then again, so are you.”

Klaus turned and made a series of obnoxious kissy noises at the soldier and giggled when he threw them right back.

“You’re so weird,” Diego snorted out next to him.

Klaus didn’t even notice how close Diego had come until he was leaning down to press a quick kiss to the top of his head.

It was so unexpected, so out of character for his usually stoic and angry brother that Klaus couldn’t even move out of shock.

“You know you can stay here for as long as you want, right?”

“Umm…”

“You’re my brother, Klaus.” Diego clapped his shoulder and smiled encouragingly. “I’m always here, even if I don’t say it very often.”

With one last parting squeeze to his arm, Diego headed out of the room and began to pull the door shut. “I have to leave for class first thing in the morning, but you’re welcome to help yourself to anything.”

Klaus nodded slowly, still in a bit of a daze and not believing what he was hearing. The pills certainly weren’t helping with his coherence, but he’d just ask the soldier about it later.

Klaus ended up not taking the shower, but the bath he had lasted for hours, draining and refilling the tub when it ran too cold. Klaus knew he was racking up the water bill, and he felt guilty every time he did it, but Diego never banged on the door or asked how he was doing, so Klaus didn’t stop.

The soldier sat against the tub, letting Klaus ramble on and on about everything and nothing. He made the appropriate noises and nods to let Klaus know he was paying attention, but it wasn’t in the absent, ‘I’m paying attention but you’re kind of annoying’ way that most people did with Klaus. The soldier always listened, always spoke up when he needed to, and Klaus had no doubt that he’d ever or would ever ignore or dismiss him like the annoying little gnat Klaus knew he was.

“What’s your name?”

“Hmm?”

“Your name.” Klaus flicked a bit of water at the soldier’s head, laughing as it just passed through and the soldier turned his head to glare playfully. “I don’t know your name.”

Klaus went quiet as the soldier turned further, his bright blue eyes flicking up to lock with Klaus’s.

And everything slowed down to a halt.

It’s been almost a decade since Klaus learned what a crush was. Since he figured out why he got that strange fluttery feeling in his stomach whenever he was near the soldier, why his hands began to itch and why he wanted to lean closer closer closer, why he needed to be the soldier’s sole focus at all times and be the center of his attention.

So that’s what he did.

The soldier’s head dipped forward, leaning in closer closer closer.

Klaus followed, his eyes dropping and the water splashing around him as he felt drawn, like there was a tether between them getting tighter and tighter and tighter.

The soldier didn’t breathe. Klaus couldn’t feel his breath or feel the familiar suffocating heat as he did whenever he was this close to someone.

Could he feel Klaus? Could he feel Klaus’s breathing pick up, feel the air puffing over his lips or the water dripping off his hair and onto the tile?

They were so close, _so close…_

“It’s a secret.”

Klaus’s eyes snapped up, brows furrowing together as the soldier fell back on his heels and gave a wicked grin. “What?”

“My name. It’s a secret.”

The soldier turned around to lean against the side once more, leaving Klaus to squawk indignantly and splash up the water over the lip of the tub as he jumped up. “Now wait a damn minute-”

For the rest of the night, all Klaus could hear was the echo of the soldier’s bright laughter playing on repeat again and again. It’s the sound that followed him into sleep, lulling him to bed just as well as any of the lullabies he’d sung to Klaus as a child.

In the morning, Diego was already gone. Klaus woke up sometime after noon, popping the last of Aarony’s pills and picking through the kitchen cabinets.

“How about a nice, healthy breakfast? Like an omelet. Omelets are nice.”

“Yeah. _Yeah_. Are there spoons? I can cook one and shoot it up with my needle from last week.”

“Klaus, no.”

They compromised on waffles.

But, alas, the day must go on. Klaus even had the sense of self to wash the dishes he used and put them away so Diego didn’t have to. He changed back into his normal clothes and put the dirty ones in the laundry with the towel from last night.

On the way out Klaus’s eye catches on something underneath the floorboards.

“ **Klaus**.”

The soldier’s voice is a warning. It’s stern in the way it gets when he knows Klaus is about to rock someone’s shit and do something bad.

(Not ‘yelling at Luther through the vents pretending to be Satan reclaiming his children’ bad. More like ‘I started a fist fight with Number Six on The Tonight Show and got whipped by dad in the limo’ _Bad_.)

It was an old knife case mom had made Diego when they were little. It was old and worn, the hinges creaking as he opened it up.

It had to be at least four grand in cash. Klaus giggled a little manically as he went through it and counted the bills.

“Don’t.”

Klaus finally looked up to where the soldier was standing across from him. His eyes were hard and jaw tight, refusing to break eye contact with Klaus.

But there was a set to his shoulders that Klaus knew. The same resignation that was present when Klaus went somewhere he shouldn’t or did something he knew would fuck him over in the long run but didn’t care enough to stop. Resigned. Disappointed. Tired.

“He _said_ I could help myself to anything here.”

“ _Klaus_!”

“I’ll be nice. I’ll only take 3k.”

“He’s your _brother_.”

“Eh. He’ll be fine. He can make more.”

Klaus didn’t go to Diego’s graduation.

Diego sees Klaus again four weeks later. He stares for a hard moment before turning to climb into a squad car.

Klaus is twenty two years old and he knows what it’s like to lose his family.

* * *

The mattress stunk.

Everything was hazy around Klaus as his body sunk into the moldy excuse for a bed beneath him. It was damp and moldy and one of the springs was jabbing into Klaus’s bony hip.

“Oh, baby.”

Outside the back room was a group of men screaming. Klaus could pick up his pimp’s voice in particular, Harley screaming and screaming, the occasional sound of a punch or a chair being thrown.

Everything hurt. Klaus absently poked at his wrist, purple and black and throbbing. It was probably broken.

The window in front of him had spiderweb cracks running through it. The neon lights outside flooded through like a kaleidoscope, falling over Klaus’s broken and bloody body struggling for breath in a dirty, needle-covered crack house somewhere in south Philly.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, Klaus. It’s okay.”

Harley would come back. Klaus knew he would. He was never satisfied no matter how hard he beat him. The sadistic motherfucker got off on it, and unfortunately for Klaus he was Harley’s new favorite outlet.

“You’re so strong, sunshine. So strong. It’ll be okay, I promise. Okay? I promise.”

Klaus hummed somewhere in the back of his throat.

There was another scream behind him. Amber was in the corner of the room, pulling at her dull purple hair and sobbing.

Klaus wanted to apologize. Amber was a sweet girl, way too young to be here. She died last week after she was gang raped and overdosed by one of Harley’s dealers.

“One day you’ll finally see how amazing you are. Are you listening, baby? You are so special, so precious, you’ll get through this. You’ll get through this.”

Klaus’s eyes flick up. The soldier is kneeling beside his head, ghosty tears dripping down his cheeks. He tried to touch Klaus’s hair and the icky cold feeling makes Klaus’s mouth feel like cotton and makes his brain rattle uncomfortably.

The soldier makes a sound weirdly close to a whine and the tears begin to flow faster.

His head falls to the mattress. Klaus and the soldier lock eyes and Klaus is able to match their breathing. His muscles relax and eyelids flicker.

Everything is slow and sticky. Time doesn’t feel real, nothing feels real, Klaus is far far far away from here, skin buzzing and soul thrumming within the confines of his rib cage.

(Mom used to call him a hummingbird because of how fast his heart would beat. Right now, Klaus would give up his college savings account to make that fucking bird take a damn klonopin.)

Klaus isn’t sure how long it’s been. He just stays put, the lights flashing red and green and yellow and violet over his slack face.

There’s nothing there.

He can’t feel anything.

His eyes never leave the soldier’s.

He hums something from the sixties, slow and gentle like when the waves would lap over Klaus’s toes and the sand slowly drains away beneath his feet.

But he knows, with every last fiber of his being, that the soldier would catch him when the last of the sand was gone.

Klaus is twenty three and three quarters and he thinks he knows what love is.

* * *

Everything is sore and Klaus is tired, but they got their fix and that was all that mattered.

The soldier sat next to them as Klaus tied the old and fraying belt above the crook of their elbow. Klaus sniffed and slapped at their arm until they could find a vein.

“Aren’t you tired yet?”

Klaus groaned and snapped their head to where the soldier laid in a christ pose on his back among the discarded needles and various types of roaches. “Aren’t _you_ tired yet?” Klaus mocked in a high pitched voice. They pulled up their legs underneath them and lined up the syringe to their arm. “Go visit your sister or whatever, I’m busy.”

“I don’t trust that one. Lily Whatsherface.”

“Good thing you don’t have to deal with her.”

In hindsight, Klaus should probably listen to the soldier a bit more.

That was one of the first thoughts that ran through Klaus’s head when they came to in a grayscale field in the middle of nowhere.

It was a bad batch. It was a _very_ bad batch, so much so that Klaus had barely had enough for a full dose before passing out on the abandoned warehouse’s floor.

Everything was quiet there. It was even better than the drugs, the world wasn’t dulled or fuzzy along the edges. It was just _calm_.

There was a picnic a few yards away. There was a wide plaid blanket with a plate of sandwiches and a tiny tea set with intricate little flowers painted on the sides.

The little girl at the picnic didn’t even look up from her book as Klaus unsteadily climbed to their feet and stumbled forward.

“You’re not supposed to be here.”

There was an empty space next to the girl and Klaus didn’t even ask before plopping down. The girl glared sharply from underneath her wide, floppy hat before going back to her book in a huff.

“Where am I?”

“Where do you think?”

Klaus’s nails were violet. They stared at them in fascination, holding them up to the world around them to compare the bright spot of color to the unending black and white around them.

“You’re dead,” the girl supplied blandly.

“Oh.”

The girl turned the page of her book, taking a dainty sip from her teacup before sighing gently.

“Are you god?”

“Is that who you think I am?”

“Well I’m agnostic, so…”

“You’re not. Supposed. To _be_ here.”

“Yeah, I _got_ that.” Klaus tried to peek at the book over the girl’s shoulder, but she snatched it away before they could see anything. “Can I stay?”

“No.”

“I don’t want to go back.”

“Tough shit.”

Klaus groaned and fell back in a dramatic huff. They threw their arms out and stared up at the empty sky above.

“It’s quiet here.”

It was quiet for a while, the gentle breeze of the wind shaking the trees in a patterned symphony. Klaus closed their eyes and breathed in, experiencing true calm for the first time in their life.

At some point the girl moved closer until she sat at Klaus’s hip. There was a ripping sound before a handful of grass rained down on Klaus’s face.

“Why can’t I stay?”

“This isn’t even your final destination. This is an In Between. You’ve been here for too long already.”

More ripping. Klaus’s nose twitched as more grass piled onto their face.

“What’s after?”

“That’s for you to see and find out.”

“When am I going to find out?”

“Not for a long time yet, child.”

Klaus came to as the sun began to rise, the cool blues and purples falling to make way for the oranges and yellows and pinks began to crawl across the sky. It was dark and it was loud, a little boy by the smashed in window banging his head on the broken glass and the soldier heaving deep, sobbing breaths over their cold body.

Klaus is twenty five years old and they know what it’s like to die.

* * *

It’s not a surprise that Reggie kicks it.

It’s _really_ not a surprise when Luther and Diego start a fist fight over their Father’s ashes.

However, it _is_ slightly disconcerting when there’s an achingly familiar crackle of blue light and Number Five, who hadn’t bothered to even show for their sad excuse for a funeral, dead drops onto the bar bruised and bloody and cursing out every god and deity there ever is or was.

“Um… does anyone else see little Number Five?”

“Oh, _fuck off_.”

Five isn’t so little anymore, but the sentiment carries. He’s taller than Klaus and Diego now, only exaggerated more by the scarily tall stilettos that almost put him on Luther’s level. Even dripping blood and stumbling slightly around the bar towards the margarita mix, he somehow manages to look more put together than the six of them combined.

Ben’s already making his way towards Five, his eyebrows furrowed and the first aid kit he’d been using on Luther in hand.

(And damn, Ben’s a _real live_ _doctor_ now. Dr. Hargreeves. Klaus is so fucking proud of him.)

Five swats Ben away as he makes his way back around to sit at the bar before them all. The silence is heavy and cloying around them, the sound of Allison’s shifting feet grating on all their ears and the slight scratching of Vanya turning on the couch seems to echo in the space around them.

“This is so awkward.”

Klaus flaps their hand behind his back in a bid to tell the soldier to shut it.

“Hey man.”

Five raises an eyebrow at Diego over the rim of his glass as he takes a long pull from his neon blue monstrosity of a drink.

“What’s with the blood?”

Ben begins to dab at a gash by Five’s temple, holding him still with gloved hands despite Five trying to yank his head away.

“Don’t worry, only most of it is mine.”

“That’s real comforting, buddy. Thanks.”

Five chugs down the rest of his drink and sighs. It’s bone deep, tired and heavy and underlined with a pervading sense of emptiness.

Luther finally snaps out of whatever haze it was in and makes his way towards where Five is trying to wrestle away from where Ben is putting butterfly bandaids on his head. “Fivel I will fucking _strangle you_ if you keep moving.”

“You’re late. You missed the funeral.”

“ _What_.”

Five’s voice is still the same as it was when they were children. It’s sharp and mocking and arrogant, the undercurrent of anger that is so familiar among the Hargreeves cutting through the room like new rebar through gutted flesh.

“You missed-”

“I fucking heard you, _asshole_ . Are you _blind_ or just _incredibly stupid_?”

Diego snorted out a laugh and Allison smacked his shoulder in a reprimanding manner.

“While the rest of you pretentious fucks were busy playing with the bastard’s ashes, I was busy making some new and _very_ violent friends. In case you couldn’t tell.”

“Are you okay?” Ben murmured gently, taking Five’s hand in his to clean his cut knuckles.

Five sighed and fell back against the bartop. His eyes fell closed and Klaus shuffled forward to hesitantly brush his hair back from his eyes.

“I will cut you and watch you bleed.” But Five still leaned into the touch, so Klaus didn’t stop.

Diego stepped up, shouldering Luther aside as a dark shadow took over his face. “Who did this to you? What did they want?”

Five’s eyes fluttered open again, flitting from Klaus to Ben to Di in circles, their dark blue irises closed off and haunted and and 

He looked _scared_.

In all his life, Klaus could count on one hand how many times they'd seen Five scared and still have fingers left over.

This wasn’t good. Wasn’t good at all.

“They call themselves The Commission.”

Klaus is twenty nine years old and the world is going to end in eight days.

* * *

Honestly, Klaus should start expecting this shit at some point.

Was it their own fault? A little bit. Klaus probably should be more aware of their surroundings by now, especially after spending so long on the streets with just an incorporeal ghost to watch their back. But still, who could’ve expected their house to be broken into by some freaks in furry masks shooting up the place looking for Five?

Eyes closed, music blasting, Klaus couldn’t hear the soldier as he screamed for Klaus to pay attention. They couldn’t hear the gunshots or their siblings screaming, couldn’t hear the pounding of the Horror’s tentacles against the walls or the chandelier crashing down on Number One’s gorilla-esque back.

All Klaus knew was that they were dancing, they was taking in deep breaths as they navigated their high, and then there was nothing.

* * *

“It’s okay, sunshine. It’s okay, everything’s okay. I’m here, baby, I’m here. I’m here.”

Klaus’s head was pounding as they slammed it again and again and again, dizzy and crying and desperate as they prayed to the little girl in the sky for someone, _anyone_ , to come save them.

_Please please please please please please please ple_

Oh, the nice cop lady is so pretty.

“Are you Diego’s brother?”

Klaus was nodding, frantic and crying and vibrating in their seat as she unbound them from the chair.

“Down, _down_ , get _down_.”

“There’s two of them! Lady, there’s-”

“Got it, _down_!”

Klaus didn’t want _down_ , they wanted _out_.

“C’mon sweetheart. The vent. Go through the vent.”

Thank gods all those years starving on the streets were good for something. Klaus was able to squeeze through the vent, pushing along the weird briefcase in order to get through.

Klaus didn’t stop running until they got to the bus stop, stumbling up the steps and collapsing in the nearest seat with a desperate shock of exhausted laughter.

“Don’t open it.”

The soldier crouched in front of Klaus, a wild and slightly desperate look in his eye as he struggled to catch Klaus’s hazy gaze.

“Klaus. _Klaus_! Don’t open it, baby. Don’t open it. _Please_ Klaus, _don’t-_ ”

“Please be money, _please_ be money.”

* * *

(Spoiler: it wasn’t money.)

* * *

“Just got in?”

Everything.

Just.

S 

T

O 

P

S 

* * *

Klaus would know that voice anywhere, in anyplace, in anytime in the world. It was the playlist of their life, the constant hum in the back of their head, talking and laughing and singing and crying.

They turn on the bus, towards their laughing soldier, dressed in army green and grinning brighter than the stars and the suns and the exploding lights decorating the dark barren sky at midnight.

He’s _here_ , of _course_ he’s here he’ll _always_ be there for Klaus he’s never _not_ been there, why-

And then one of the others knock his shoulder.

They

They

They

The soldier's eyes pinch, eyebrow raising as he leans in closer closer closer and

Oh.

Klaus can finally feel his breath.

It’s warm.

The soldier stares longer, looking more and more confused by the moment but doesn’t say anything, doesn’t offer an introduction or a question or

 _Oh_. He already asked the question.

_Just got in?_

Like he doesn’t know Klaus. Like he wasn’t there when Klaus took their first steps or when he taught Klaus their first words or showed them how to properly roll their own cigarettes or how to make cherry Jell-O Shots or 

“Um… yeah.”

Then he smiles. Klaus’s soldier boy with his blinding grin and deep set dimple, their protector, their everything is here.

He’s _here_ and he’s _alive_ and _holy shit they're in the sixties._

The soldier holds out a hand and Klaus grasps it tightly.

They _touch him._

_He’s warm._

“Dave.”

“Klaus.”

It’s the first time they've ever touched the soldier. The first time they've ever touched _Dave_.

Klaus never wants to let go.

* * *

Klaus is twenty nine years old and

a n d

a n d

**Author's Note:**

> If you made it this far, many thanks. So grateful. I'm so tired.
> 
> *TW* the abuse thing is mainly referenced, mostly about the mausoleum but not too icky. I think the no no scene that's kinda icky is when Klaus is at a party and uh yeah, you can guess what happens. It's over by the next page break
> 
> In this I headcannon that Delores is a real live person and she and Five are engaged, but I couldn't figure out how to fit it in. Also, I may or may not have implied that Patch might live. She deserved so much better and you can put that on my fucking gravestone.
> 
> Hope this was semi-decent! Thank you, much love -Angel


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